Flavor Boulevard

While turkey, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole (which I haven’t had in years and REALLY want some) make up the traditional Thanksgiving feast, I will keep up the tradition of posting something different for Thanksgiving (like duck and avocado pie). Not necessarily better, just something different, because no Thanksgiving dinner is the same, right? 🙂

So here it is: the fried chicken stuffed with fried sweet rice at Yum’s Bistro in Fremont.

Known on the menu as “crispy chicken with flavored sweet rice”. The sweet rice (sticky rice) with diced bits of Chinese sausage, chicken, shrimp and mushroom are made into fried rice the normal way, then stuffed into the chicken skin – a fully intact continuous chicken skin from head to leg – which is then fried or broiled. How they skin the chicken, I’m not too sure, this dish may only be feasible to make at home if you’re a chef… but it looks interesting, and it tastes GREAT.

Like the Thanksgiving dinner, this chicken fools you into thinking you can eat more than you actually can. Two of those sections (any section) on the chicken would be plenty in one sitting because that fried sticky rice is compact steel.

When Oanh and Dang took me to Yum’s Bistro, there was a middle-aged man (presumably a regular customer) standing outside (presumably to wait for someone), who cheerily told us in the typical friendly way of old Chinese men that everything’s good at Yum’s. Oanh readily agreed, she has been here several times, each time trying a few new dishes AND the stuffed chicken. I agreed soon after I tasted the squab.

Of course, when did I ever say no to grilled game?

Beef claypot (12.50), Western China style, I believe, because of the prominent cumin flavor.

Hong Kong Spicy Crab (seasonal and no price was listed). It says “spicy” and looks spicy but it really isn’t anything more than a hint of pepper. The salt and spice mixed with which they generously coated the crab makes you want to lick the shell more than actually eating the meat.

Almond milk and egg white dessert (Chef’s special and pre-order is recommended, also no price was listed?!). Oanh wasn’t a fan because she’s sensitive to bitterness – there’s a faint bitter aftertaste at the back of your tongue if you really search for it, but I like some types of bitter when it’s also sweet (hello, bitter melon and tea! 😀 ), so I’m a fan.

Near the end, the chef walked out to each table to greet the customers. We thanked him and smiled to our ears, he smiled back and nodded, I don’t think he knows much English. That’s all good, of course, he’s happy to make food, we’re happy to eat it, we understood each other just fine. 🙂

Address: Yum’s Bistro
4906 Paseo Padre Parkway
Fremont, CA 94555
(510) 745-8866 (if you want to pre-order the Chef’s specials)
website and menu

The American Vietnamese must not like vegan very much. (And I stress “American” because plenty of places back home specialize in making vegan dishes far tastier than their meat counterparts.) Take Berkeley for example, there’s no Vietnamese vegan diners, but I can think of at least three Chinese ones (Vegi Food, Long Life Vegi House, and Renee’s Place) and a multitude of American’s (like Cafe Gratitude, Herbivore, and Saturn Cafe). Green Cafe in Milpitas is the first Vietnamese vegan restaurant you can find south of Berkeley.

Its good points: there’s an online menu, everything costs under ten bucks, and they give you a free warm-up. The tofu soup has little black squares of dry seaweed and a soothing broth slightly thickened with tapioca starch. The soup isn’t magnificent, but nothing gets the appetite rolling better than a gulp of soup.

Green Cafe’s fourth good point: no item on the menu has the word “Buddha” attached to its name. Here’s a pet peeve of mine: some people casually name their stuff Buddha this and that whenever their stuff doesn’t have animal. How come I haven’t seen “Jesus steak” or “Krishna delight”? I don’t even see “Washington mix” or any of sort. Just cuz the Buddhists don’t yell at you that it’s offensive to them it doesn’t mean you can commercialize any name as you please. Anyway, Green Cafe doesn’t have any of that on their list, so I eat here in peace. Granted they do have some sequin-sparkling names like “beauty tofu eggplant claypot” or “noble broccoli” (vegan beef and broccoli stir fry). I don’t know if the broccoli is noble, but the eggplant claypot looks as good as it tastes, for eggplant at least. The sauce could use some more salt and sugar and simmering, but the spongy eggplants and mushrooms soak up enough of it to nicely complement white rice.

The star of our lunch is the $7.95 wonton noodle soup with soft and flaky fried tofu, snow mushroom, and fried shallot in a sweet broth. If everything on their menu is as good as this soup, Green Cafe would rival Garden Fresh on my list. Or if they have vegan shrimps.

Lunch for two: $19.06

Address: Green Cafe Vegan Cuisine
190 Ranch Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 375-8273
http://www.greencafevegan.com/

It’s almost certain that outside the big Vietnamese communities any Vietnamese restaurant you see in America has the word pho in it. People must eventually have the impression that Vietnamese eat nothing but rice noodle soup. Of course, Japanese eat nothing but sushi and Americans have only hamburgers.

Mudpie found this place earlier in Los Altos, about 10-15 minutes car ride from SLAC. We strayed from the usual pho and ordered a gargantuan set of appetizers and main courses. Starting off was the familiar goi cuon, a salad wrap with some lettuce or garden herbs, some halved shrimps (mainly for decoration), a razor blade thin slice of boiled pork, some fresh bean sprout, and a little bundle of rice vermicelli. I took a bite by itself, and the meat couldn’t quite buff the plain veggie up, so a dip into the peanut sauce nearby was essential. It was a very light appetizer, and no matter how slowly you go you’re gonna finish the roll in at most 3 minutes. I don’t know what kind of sauce they serve with in Vietnam, but the peanut sauce here is just really good.

Next came the supposedly called cha gio (stated “in rice paper” on the menu). As I had lived in Vietnam for 17 years I believe I’m qualified to judge whether a roll of cha gio is actually made of rice paper (banh trang) or the fooling wheat sheet that makes the Vietnamese cha gio synonymous with the Chinese egg roll. So here goes: “rice paper” my foot. It’s not any more rice paper than the average mediocre egg roll you find at any Chinese buffet. Can you ever find a real cha gio in America anymore? I’d give them some credit for trying: the wrapper is indeed thin. But rice paper is translucent, this is as opaque as Venus’ atmosphere. Good egg roll, but honestly, I feel cheated.

Pictured above is goi ngo sen tom thit (lotus stem salad with shrimp and pork), which appeared suspiciously in the appetizer section, since we both ate some and even took the rest home for another meal. One thing to be noticed is Vietnamese salad is nothing like our usual American garden salad or Caesar salad. The waiter is not going to ask you what kind of dressing you’d like, and you need not innocuously remind “on the side, please”. There is no reason to fret over some little Ranch or bleu cheese dressing that will cause your calorie level to shoot up, or vinaigrette to make your taste buds sour. The salad is simply soaked in a mixture of salt, lemon juice, and sugar. Every piece of lotus stem, sliced carrot, sliced onion, cilantro, even the thin slices of boiled pork and the shrimp halves, has almost the same taste of that mixture, thoroughly and evenly. The lotus stem is a little crunchy, the pork is tender and mild, but not plain in the least, topped with crushed peanuts for some nuttiness. The salad is a meal in itself, so simple and elegant. And healthy.

But we didn’t stay healthy for long. For main course we had com tay cam (English name: clay pot) and old timer bun thit nuong (cold rice vermicelli with grilled pork).

The rice came with a small cup of pho broth, which I’m not sure what to do with. I’m pretty sure the rice wasn’t cooked in the pot, only served in it, because the pot wasn’t hot and the rice was almost flaming. The first spoon was excellent, the second revealed that it’s a rather oily combination of fried rice, fried shiitake mushroom, fried Chinese sausage, and fried chicken. The pot could be smaller than your cereal bowl, but it’s like the pot of Thach Sanh, it’s so filling you keep eating layer after layer but you just can’t finish it in one sitting.

Now this had been my craving for a long time. A bowl of chargrilled pork chops atop a soft bed of bún, some bean sprout and sliced cucumber at the bottom for a taste of freshness, sprinkled crushed peanuts and many a spoonful of nuoc mam pha (fish extract diluted in water, mixed with lemon juice, salt and sugar, and very little chopped garlic). I like the bun, the nuoc mam, and the veggie, but I would whisper *just* a little disappointment with the pork. It was definitely flavorful, but it was too thinly sliced. It wasn’t grilled long enough to bring out all the flavor. And it’s a little, just a little, dry. Beside, how are you supposed to cut that monstrously wide sheet of meat with chopsticks?

This is the closest one could get to Vietnamese food from Palo Alto, and unarguably a good find (a decent one, if you’re uncompromisingly picky about real cha gio). It’s cheap and takes credit card. We didn’t have to wait long for our food to arrive, but if you expect attentive service coming to ask “Is everything okay?” and refill your water every 10 minutes, don’t come here. Vietnamese restaurants respect privacy of their customers, so no need to worry about putting food in your mouth the correct way (as there is none). The only thing that bothered me about this place was the chatty nature of the hostesses. When the restaurant wasn’t packed after prime lunch time, our ladies comfortably spilled out to each other, across the counter and tables in Vietnamese with heavy Southern accent, numerous pieces about friends and relatives. Not that many could understand them, but some background music would be more pleasant I think. See menu.

Phở Vỉ Hoa Restaurant
4546 El Camino Real Suite A12
Los Altos, CA 94022
Lunch for two: $21.81